Though he is widely believed to have designed the current layout of Washington, D.C., Pierre Charles L’Enfant really designed only part of the city.
The French-born architect and city planner had developed a strong reputation in New York when George Washington appointed him to design a new capital city on the Potomac in 1791. The plan specified that most streets would be laid out in a grid. To form the grid, some streets would travel east-west, while others would travel north-south. Diagonal avenues later named after the state s of the union crossed the grid. The diagonal avenues intersect with the north-south and east-west streets at circles and rectangular plazas that would later honor notable Americans and provide open space. L’Enfant also included plans for a “grand avenue” to run through the city, an idea that would later become the National Mall, and a long, narrower avenue (now Pennsylvania Avenue) that would connect the Congress House with the President’s House.
Through a bit of political scheming, L’Enfant’s plans were co-opted by others and altered, and L’Enfant received only a nominal sum for his work. Though he fell into disgrace and died almost penniless, years after his death the Capital city came to embrace L’Enfant’s contributions to its unique cityscape and urban layout.
Image and info courtesy Wikipedia.
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